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KK welcomes reform panel recommendations

VISAKHAPATNAM: Rajya Sabha member and former PCC president K. Keshava Rao on Tuesday described the recommendations of the Second Administrative Reforms Commission as very good and expressed the view that they would promote and uphold peace in the country.

In an informal chat at a media conference, he underlined the need for greater coordination between the Centre and states for maintenance of peace.

He said that terrorism was an inter-state problem and called for cooperation between the affected states to effectively deal with it. Referring to the violence in Orissa, he said it was unfortunate that violence was taking a communal angle and felt that such sensitive issues should be tackled with utmost care.

Women’s quota bill

Mr. Keshava Rao said that the Congress was prepared to introduce women’s reservation bill in Parliament.

He called upon all political parties to support the bill.

He ruled out the need for a debate on the nuclear deal as discussions had already been held on the issue on seven occasions in the past three years.

When his attention was drawn to Railway Minister Lalu Prasad blowing hot and cold on the Centre for the terrorist attacks, Mr. Keshava Rao refused to accept that it was a failure of the UPA Government.

He recalled that many terrorist attacks including the one on Parliament had occurred during the NDA regime.

Attacks on minorities were occurring in BJP-ruled Karnataka even now.

When a scribe asked why the Congress was fighting shy of announcing the number of seats it would allocate to BC s in the coming elections when the TDP had announced 100 seats, he said: “We will allocate one seat more than TD,” and added “We will allocate more seats than all other political parties.”